Vash the Stampede (person)

The lead character of the anime series Trigun, he's got long, blond hair, spiked in a Sonic the Hedgehog look that's trendy in Japan. He wears a large red trenchcoat, and sports circular glasses. You probably have seen him in one of the ads on the top of the screen on E2.

As for personality, he's a really nice person. He has a stupid grin on his face a lot of the time. You'd think he's a very cool person...until he opens his mouth. At first impression, you think he's really naive, and a complete clumsy fool, but try to hurt him and you find that he's as sharp as a tack. He's extremely similiar to Fydor Dostoyevsky's novel The Idiot. All he desires in life is Love and Peace!

Somehow he survives every gunfight, but everybody thinks it's just because he got lucky and jumped eveywhere, but is actually far better. He has a superhuman degree of dexterity and intelligence, but only uses this for the good of others. He is an ace gunman, and uses a silver revolver, cowboy style. Nobody seems to pay attention to him: "That guy was the legendary gunman all along? I saw him walking down the street crying and eating Doughnuts!"

There is a $$60,000,000,000 bounty on his head, dead or alive, for his destruction of an entire city, but strangely no deaths. He is so feared that people evacuate at the rumor of his presence. He is known as The Humanoid Typhoon, no matter how many hundreds of men you send, he can't be killed. He's considered an Act of God, with over 300 incidents the insurance agencies have had to pay for. The manga comic (Trigun and Trigun Maximum) mention on the wanted poster that strangely he's a staunch pacifist.

Vash radiates a total air of cool. His face is expressionless and he performs feats not unlike Neo from The Matrix. He's a hero, but every so often drops the macho façade and crys, whines, and whimpers, to the laughter of the audience. Oh, and he loves doughnuts.

Perhaps you'd better stop here if you don't want to read the Spoilers. The whole Trigun series is fantastic, and bit by bit more of his psyche is revealed. Knowing all of his mysterious past ruins the suprise.

Vash is actually a human, but genetically enhanced, and a passenger aboard a generation ship to transport a colony of humans to a new world. He had a twin brother, Knives, who hated his inferior human companions. Knives kills the crew, sabotages the systems, and crashes the ships on a desert planet. The love of his life, Rem Saravem, was a mother to Vash, and she died saving the colonists.

Knives built a special gun in the form of a cowboy 6-shooterrevolver, and gave it to Vash to destroy the rest of the humans. He refused, and ran away. Knives went and killed all of Rem's relatives, and activated the special technology in Vash's gun. Inside is some form of fusion engine from the crashed ship, a weapon that completely destroyed the city of July. Although there was complete destruction, nobody died.

Rem was his mentor, he reveres her like a christian reveres the blessed mother. She preached that nobody has the right to take the life of another. She sang one of the most beautiful songs, and hoped for a better tomorrow. Vash went on a quest for vengance.

Vash is a Pacifist. He never, ever kills, not even in self defense. If he's confronted, he only shoots and fights back to stop his attacker, not kill them. He carries the enormous burden of the innocent lives he couldn't save, and has massive scars all over his body from the damage of fighting, but not killing, his opponents. He lost an entire arm, and has a bionic one concealing a gun. If he ever kills a person, the memory of Rem will be gone.

What makes Vash so appealing to me is how he is so similiar to Jesus Christ. The Trigun series is not religious, the priests kill people, but this person is just a great being trying to do the right thing, and never break his personal rules. He risks his own life to do good things for other people. In fan art he frequently has wings. He carries a terrible burden of humanity. What does he most want in life? Love and Peace!

The series starts off mostly a comedy, with some of his hijinks, and how he is sometimes macho, sometimes crying his eyes out. Then as the series progresses, more facets of him are revealed, and the series moves toward more serious topics and an underlying theme; How difficult can it get for a person to stick to their morals? The theme is very similiar to Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons.

He loves humanity. Rem taught him the beauty of life. Just walking in the city, the people whose lives he's saved, the families talking together, the children playing tag on the street, the merchants selling wares, makes him burst out into tears over how beautiful the world is. And I did too.

He just doesn't want to hurt anyone, he's humble, lonely, generous, and a pacifist. In the end he must confront his evil twin brother, and it boils down to whether he can break his one principle in life never to kill.

As anime goes, it's a pretty popular series, and a big favorite.
If you're an otaku, it's a requirement to see the series.
If you don't watch anime, see Trigun. You will not be disappointed.